Biography:

Dr. Chaves grew up in a semi-conservative, Catholic family in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California.  He was the youngest of four children to a virgin mother and a father who attended the seminary.  Needless to say, he was surrounded by religion, virtue, and family values.  He was an altar boy and athlete with a mildly rebellious nature that would soon surface.  Having attended Catholic institutions from kindergarten through high school, his childhood was filled with questions surrounding sexuality and the place for sex in our lives.  However, many of those questions were avoided or never answered by anyone.  He never received any formal sex education in school as a youth and his knowledge of sexuality was based on peer interactions, myths, and stereotypes of sex. 

As a teenager and young adult, Dr. Chaves learned about the “birds and the bees” through misinformation and trial and error.  It was at this point that he decided he wanted to dedicate his life to discovering the answers to the questions that had eluded him since his childhood.  Is it okay to be sexual?  Can religion and sex coexist?  Is what I think about sex normal?   

His fascination and curiosity led him on a path to study Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) www.ucsb.edu.  However, earning a degree in Psychology only fueled his desire to discover more about the interactions amongst people in their relationships and human sexuality. 

The next stop was applying to the Master’s program in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) at the University of San Diego (USD) www.sandiego.edu.  USD, one of four state and nationally accredited MFT Masters programs in California, provided an excellent learning environment to help Dr. Chaves better understand human behavior in relationships and therapy.  However, there were still many questions about sexuality that remained unanswered.

A turning point in his life was when Dr. Chaves enrolled at The Institute of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) in San Francisco, CA. www.iashs.edu A private institution, IASHS is an innovative, progressive, and experiential program unlike any other educational venue.  These eye opening experiences helped him become informed and educated on numerous areas of Human Sexuality that previously had not been addressed or overlooked in the past.  With this newly acquired knowledge, combined with a psychological and therapeutic background, Dr. Chaves found comfort and solace as a Clinical Sexologist and Sex Therapist.  It was studying these different disciplines, Psychology, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Sexology, which opened his eyes to a new view on people, relationships, love, intimacy, and sexuality. 

Today, Dr. Chaves has a successful private practice in Beverly Hills, offers workshops, does media appearances, is a professor of human sexuality, and promotes healthy sex-positive relationships.